Simulation technologies to strengthen Home Team frontline training

The use of simulation technologies will help the Home Team to strengthen its frontline training, asserted Home Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam. He was speaking at the Home Team Academy’s workplan seminar held at the ICA building.

He said, “The officers must experience it, so that when they are faced with a real situation, they know, ‘This is familiar to me, I know what to do’, their reflexes kick in — instinctive and decisive.”

Home Affairs and Law Minister of Singapore K Shanmugam. Photo courtesy: gov.sg

Noting that training must mirror frontline operational realities, even in a resource-tight environment, he said simulators will be rolled out at the frontline and within training institutions.

Speaking about the importance of training with simulators, the Minister said, “The simulators will come in handy in today’s security environment, where the Home Team must be trained to respond to a terror incident that can take place very quickly ... with little or no warning, with the loss of many lives.”

Giving an example of a simulator, he said, “One such simulator, which comes in the form of a mobile classroom fitted in a truck, has been developed over six months and tested at Bedok Police Division for about three weeks. It can train up to 16 police officers in about 15 minutes just before their shifts start.”

He added that the value of simulators lies in how they are highly immersive and interactive, being able to expose officers to a range of scenarios and to provide immediate feedback through sensors.

He also spoke a mobile application that is being developed to complement access to an online learning portal introduced in October last year.

With it, over 38,000 Home Team officers, civilians and full-time national servicemen will be able to access bite-sized training materials on the go, via their personal handheld devices instead of office desktops, so the high tempo of the officers’ day-to-day operations will not be disrupted.

Ashraf Jamal brings a rare depth to writing equipped with a degree in journalism, a postgraduate degree in political science, and a degree in law from the Allahabad University. His experience includes editing and publishing the Northern India Patrika and writing for Times of India for almost a decade covering just about any topic under the sun including NRIs and Indian diaspora.